


Come to sparkle the dark up

by northcountry



Category: Queen of the South (TV)
Genre: (timelines what timelines), Christmas Eve, F/M, Gen, Season 3, cooking disasters, found family ftw, la casa de James, shenanigans and mild angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22318351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northcountry/pseuds/northcountry
Summary: Of all the places Kelly Anne thought she'd find herself on Christmas Eve, cowering behind a dumpster in the middle of a running gun battle hadn't been one of them. Sharing this festive occasion with a bunch of masked bandits hell-bent on their destruction? Definitely not on her carefully crafted holiday list.
Relationships: Kelly Anne Van Awken/Pote Galvez, Teresa Mendoza & Kelly Anne Van Awken, Teresa Mendoza/James Valdez
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	Come to sparkle the dark up

**Author's Note:**

> Happy belated hols, everyone! xo This is set some ambiguous time in early Season 3 when the gang is living at James' compound (since I have no idea when Christmas would actually fall in the timeline of the show). 
> 
> Title is from "December Will Be Magic Again" by Kate Bush.

Of all the places Kelly Anne thought she'd find herself on Christmas Eve, cowering behind a dumpster in the middle of a running gun battle hadn't been one of them. Sharing this festive occasion with a bunch of masked bandits hell-bent on their destruction? _Definitely_ not on her carefully crafted holiday list.

Neither was ruining a perfectly good evening dress in a puddle of back-alley filth, but sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

It had all started out so well. Fuelled by good intentions and and an excess of Christmas spirit (aka too much Bailey’s in her morning coffee), she had carefully crafted a strategy to win over the reluctant hearts and minds of her housemates. A campaign of relentless holiday cheer where everyone would eat, breathe, and sleep Christmas until resistance was absolutely futile. But you know what they say about the best laid plans...

**_Kelly Anne Van Awken's Foolproof Guide to the Perfect Christmas Eve_ **

**_Step 1: Extreme Safehouse Makeover: Holiday Edition_**

Because there was nothing like an overabundance of sparkly décor to make you forget your troubles, right? A giant glittery bandaid of sorts.

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, falalalalalalaaa…is this straight?" Kelly Anne cast a critical eye at the oversized velvet bow she had just placed over the entrance to the living room.

Snow in Phoenix might be in short supply, but there was eggnog simmering (hopefully not burning) on the stove, the biggest fake Christmas tree that would fit through the doorway just _waiting_ to be decorated, and more tinsel than you could shake a stick at.

“Am I invisible or something?” She twisted around on the stepladder and snapped her fingers smartly at the figure lounging nearby on the couch. "Hey, _hombre_!"

Charger flicked his eyes lazily upwards for all of a millisecond before turning back his phone. "Yes, sure, it's perfect."

Sighing in irritation, she hopped off the ladder. "Can you get your ass off of Tinder or whatever it is you’re doin’ and help a girl out, here? It's Christmas for Pete's sake. Show a little spirt! The sexy Russian ladies will still be there later."

"You don't know that. And I am full of joy on the inside, really."

Kelly Anne rolled her eyes. This was like pulling teeth.

Sure, maybe they all had more important things to worry about. Like their burgeoning illegal drug enterprise masquerading as a winery, or the sicarios _literally_ lurking around every corner. Or the alarmingly long list of people who wanted them dead.

But surely for _one_ day a year they could forget the crime and chaos and focus on the good things in life? Because Kelly Anne van Awken liked to celebrate the holidays in style, and she would not fail to deliver, come hell or high water.

(Or the next kidnapping attempt, which did seem to happen a _tad_ more often than she thought everyone's blood pressure could reasonably handle.)

Even bad guys needed a holiday, though, right? Or were they the bad guys now? Kelly Anne hadn't had enough alcohol for that line of existential thinking.

_Focus._

She continued to putter through the house, leaving a trail of festive knick-knacks in her wake. As she turned her attention to a life-sized nutcracker statue (that was, in retrospect, a little bit creepy), she heard the front door open, followed by a crash and muffled cursing.

“Teresa, honey, is that you?”

Business was booming, it would seem, with Teresa constantly out and about even this close to Christmas. Holiday cheer, after all, did come in many different forms, and sometimes you just needed something to take the edge off. _Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…_

Poking her head around the corner, she spied James steadying Teresa on her feet, the shattered remnants of a snow globe littered around the foyer. _Oops._

"Oh my gosh, sorry about the mess!" she chirped, grabbing a broom and bustling to their side, missing the flicker of sadness that passed over Teresa's face. "I know it's all a little topsy turvy at the moment, but I'll have it all squared away in a jiffy!"

James (who was incapable of relaxing for a hot second) was assessing the area for threats, like a bloodhound on the trail of potential Christmas disasters. Apparently, the same instincts that kept him alive in the theatre of war were also handy for curbing the enthusiasm of overzealous decorators. 

The furrow between his brows deepened as he surveyed the tangle of cords leading outside. Tricked out with all manner of aggressively flashing festive lights, the front porch was Kelly Anne’s _piece de résistance_.

"You know that’s a fire hazard, right?”

“Killjoy,” Kelly Anne pouted, though she knew he was right. “Oh, that reminds me, I should probably go check on the eggnog…”

James gave her a pointed look. “Please don’t burn down my house.”

**_Addendum to Step 1, courtesy of James Valdez: stringing together extension cords may result in fire, death, and general destruction. Leaving stovetop unattended may do the same._ **

"Fine, fine, I'll take care of it. Only _you_ can prevent Christmas fires, right? So says Smoky the Dog. Or is it Sparky the Bear?”

She was rambling, but James wasn't even paying attention anymore. His gaze was laser-focused on Teresa, who was staring at the shattered snow globe with a blank expression. He touched her elbow lightly. "Hey, you okay?"

Teresa snapped out of her reverie and smiled brightly, the light not quite reaching her eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine. I've got to go…" She gestured vaguely towards her office.

Kelly Anne watched James watch Teresa go (something she found herself doing quite a bit these days). _Those two._

She liked to think of herself as a woman of intuition and observation when it came to matters of the heart, and there was definitely _something_ going on there. James “Heart Eyes” Valdez wasn’t as smooth as he liked to think, and she, Kelly Anne Van Awken, Esquire, was on to him. The way his hand lingered just a little too long on her back, or the way he stood just a tiny bit closer than appropriate...

She was dying for the inside scoop. After all, “Priscilla” wasn’t likely to get any action anytime soon, so she had to live vicariously through the romantic adventures of her housemates.

Too bad Teresa wasn’t the type to spill her secrets over manicures and martinis. But either way, it was clearly time for Kelly Anne to take matters into her own hands. All in the name of Christmas, of course.

_**Step 2: Subtly (or not) encourage some cuddling under the mistletoe** _

Since it was unclear whether James and Teresa's sexual tension was of the resolved or the unresolved variety, surely a little nudge in the right direction could only add to the seasonal joy? Cue one jaunty sprig of mistletoe over the front door.

Unfortunately, Kelly Anne's plan backfired spectacularly. Pote and Charger ended up as her first victims, and the encounter nearly ended with bloody noses and bad feeling all around. Teresa took one look at the mistletoe and promptly started coming and going through the garage, so Kelly Anne eventually relented with a bit of bad grace, cursing her friends' refusal to conform to her Hallmark-movie-trope expectations. How very inconsiderate of them.

**_Addendum to Step 2: Mistletoe is potentially hazardous to one’s health. Use with caution._ **

"You should give it a rest," said Pote in that deep, resonant rumble of his. She’d found him out on the back deck, smoking a cigar. The smell was comfortingly familiar. “It’s like Santa’s freaking workshop in there.”

"Oh, I'm sorry, is it beneath your manly dignity to help a girl out when she's tryin’ to do somethin’ nice for Teresa? When she’s probably majorly bummed out by memories of Guero and how it’s not safe for Tony to be here with her? Plus, you know, people tryin’ to kill her every other day?”

She was playing dirty busting out the Teresa card, but as Pote grimaced and grunted his assent, eyes softening, she knew she'd won. While she strongly suspected he’d truly prefer running into a hail of bullets to hearing one more rendition of _Deck the Halls_ , she also knew there was nothing Pote wouldn't do for their fearless leader.

And it was because Teresa meant so much to her, to all of them, that Kelly Anne wanted to make this holiday extra special.

She got it, she did - all the seasonal rhetoric about family togetherness sure hurt like hell when you didn't have one to celebrate with, and Lord knew Teresa had lost enough. And though Kelly Anne certainly wasn’t the poster child for a functional family dynamic herself (helloooo, who has two thumbs and shot her husband?), they had each other, right? Right?

**_Sidebar: A brief moment of introspection and soul-searching brought to you by Trader Joe's Jumbo Cinnamon Rolls and half a bottle of rosé_ **

'Tis the season to be jolly…until your own holiday hype failed you and your traitorous, no-good mind started wandering down decidedly un-festive paths.

As Kelly Anne mechanically wound some tinsel around the bannister, the memories she’d been desperately trying to hold at bay came flooding out. The holiday parties she used to throw for Cole and his associates. Decorations worthy of a centrefold in Martha Stewart magazine, exquisite catered meals, the whole nine yards.

And yet…beneath all that glitz and glamour had lurked an undercurrent of bitterness and resentment that swelled with each passing year. Because she was _so much more_ than that, more than Cole's arm candy or his interior decorator or his picture-perfect holiday hostess. More than the role of the empty-headed society wife she found herself playing for the colleagues and sycophants that invaded their home every December.

It was those times that she missed the drama and intellectual sparring of the courtroom the most. Those _fuck yeah_ moments where she'd throw her wit and resourcefulness in the faces of men who dismissed her as nothing more than a pair of tits in high heels. Watch their eyes widen in if not with respect then at least with a grudging acknowledgement that she'd managed to set them back on their asses.

But those days had sometimes felt like another life, or as though that version of herself had never existed at all. And if her laughter got a little more brittle and her smile a little more practiced (and her wine glass a little fuller), no one was the wiser. (Until…no. She wasn’t ready to go there quite yet.)

Which was maybe why she was so hell-bent on her Christmas crusade. Like it was her way of retaking ownership of the season with this ragtag band of criminals who actually gave a damn about her. _Take that, ghosts of Christmas past._

_**Step 3: If food be the language of love, cook on!** _

Pote always said that the way to someone’s heart was through their stomach, and he was never wrong when it came to matters of the kitchen. So Kelly Anne spent the next morning scouring Pinterest for recipes and watching cooking videos (how hard could it be to prepare a five course dinner?) Pote wandered in at one point, peering over her shoulder to squint dubiously at the tablet screen.

"I'm takin’ charge of Christmas dinner," she announced to him. "Y'all have been so good to me, it's the least I can do. You just sit back, relax, and don't worry about a thing."

"It’s my job to worry. And are you sure this is such a good idea?" Pote was looking at her with a mixture of amusement and mistrust. "Have you ever cooked a turkey before?"

" _Pote._ "

She put on her best wounded puppy face, which she knew him to be incapable of resisting, and sure enough, he was like putty in her hands.

"Fine, just don't burn down my kitchen," he grumbled, but she could see the affection in his gruff countenance. “At least James bought some extra fire extinguishers.”

_He would, that untrusting man._

She whipped up a shopping list, underlining the final item ( _frozen cranberries, three bags_ ) with a flourish. There was something so infinitely satisfying about breaking in a fresh pad of notepaper and a well-made fountain pen. (You can take the girl out of the law firm, but you can't entirely take the law firm out of the girl. That lust for quality office supplies never quite leaves you.)

Once at the supermarket, it was oddly relaxing just pushing the cart down the aisles and pretending that she was an ordinary woman out shopping for an ordinary Christmas dinner (rather than a lawyer turned housewife turned fugitive from the law bringing groceries home to her surrogate family of drug dealers). Ha!

Her hard-as-nails boss lady with a will of iron and a generous heart. The surly yet surprisingly gentle veteran sicario whose experienced hands could kill a man ten different ways and also make the most delicious omelette you would ever taste. A mysterious-as-fuck ex-military sniper with loyalty in his bones who ditched his boss to run around the world after Teresa (there's a story there, she's sure of it). And Charger, of course, equal parts crass and kind (except when he's insulting her decorating efforts and generally being unhelpful).

A study in contradictions, this band of miscreants. The thought made her snort out loud. But they were her miscreants, for better or worse.

Back at the house, Kelly Anne wrangled together the ingredients needed for an ambitious-yet-hopefully-doable menu for the evening, commensurate with the importance of the occasion. Pote had talked her out of serving _oysters three ways_ , describing in graphic detail the different ways that could go waaay south, but she was quite pleased with the final selections.

Bloody Mary prawn shots; pan fried sprouts with _cavolo nero_ and chestnut crumbs; and brandy butter and bay roast turkey with pancetta, pistachio and apricot stuffing. (And garlic bread, because that shit was tasty.)

For dessert, she was sorely tempted by the idea of a "champagne crème profiterole pyramid" (Pinterest was truly a source of wonder), but she decided to forgo that heavenly creation in favour of a classic tres leches cake. She had previously purchased _The Taste of Mexico_ with the intention of putting together a few dishes that might appeal to Teresa and Pote, and she hoped it would add a nice, personal touch to the evening.

 _Bam_. It was showtime! Hair up, apron on, motivational playlist ready to roll.

Before long, the kitchen was filled with all manner of smells, some appetizing, some decidedly…not.

The prawn shots looked suitably fancy with their neat little garnishes. But what was the difference between a prawn and your average run of the mill shrimp? Heap on liberal amounts of tabasco sauce and double the alcohol content, and no one would know the difference, right? And if the vegetables were not quite the vibrant, crisp specimens ala _Christmas With Marth Stewart Living_ , would anyone care if they hadn't seen the picture-perfect inspiration?

The whole turkey thing did raise some interesting questions, though…like what the heck was a trivet? Google was truly a girl's best friend.

_Use your fingers to ease the skin gently away from the breast…_

Charger would have a field day with this, if he deigned to set foot in the kitchen.

_To make the brandy butter, whisk the butter and sugars together, until pale and creamy, then whisk brandy, a little at a time, until incorporated. Add a generous amount of nutmeg and a pinch of sea salt._

Sure, she can be generous with nutmeg. Oops, maybe that was a bit too generous. Eh, who doesn’t love nutmeg?

Elbow deep in gravy-from-scratch, Kelly Anne didn't even notice Pote entering the room until he was right beside her.

She jumped and nearly upset the bowl. "Jesus, Pote, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that!"

"Why does my kitchen look like a crime scene?"

"It does _not_ look like a crime scene!" Kelly Anne huffed. "That's just the tabasco sauce."

Pote prodded at the viscous mass of gravy with a spoon. "You know they sell this in cans?"

“Tinned gravy is for the weak and cowardly, Pote, and I will not be that person.”

Raising his hands in mock surrender, he turned and peered into the oven. "Your garlic bread is burning," he observed casually.

"Oh, for cryin’ out loud!"

Kelly Anne raked her flour-caked hands through her hair in frustration.

"It's okay, gabacha. Add a little olive oil, chop some tomatoes, and it will be reborn as _crostini_. No one will ever know."

"Thanks Pote, you're a lifesaver."

“No problem.” He turned to leave, but not before wiping a smudge of flour off her face with his thumb. Her cheek felt oddly warm where he’d touched her.

_**Step 4: Lay a table fit for a King (or Queen)** _

The clock was ticking down to the final hour before dinner. The table was beautifully set with crystal and gleaming silverware, bottles of wine were cooling in ice buckets, and the turkey was mostly cooked. Probably. She was 85 per cent sure. The vegetables were arrayed in a pleasing fashion on serving platters, and she hoped the presentation would distract from their somewhat limp quality.

The final piece of the puzzle was this wretched _tres leches_ cake. She kept pouring on the milk and it kept pooling at the bottom of the pan rather than soaking into the cake, no matter how many holes she poked in the darned thing. _Absorb, dammit!_

 _Slap on enough frosting and no one would be the wiser?_ She finally ran out of patience and grabbed a can of icing, licking the remnants off her fingers. Sugar could cover up a multitude of sins.

Hurrying to her room, she showered off the last remnants of kitchen carnage and slipped into a backless red dress and a pair of stilettos. She'd insisted everyone rise to the occasion and dress their best, and she wasn't disappointed. Teresa looked gorgeous in a navy-blue halter dress, and the men all cleaned up nicely in crisp suits and ties.

 _A meal brings people together_. That was what her mother had always said, and she hoped that would hold true tonight. Filling wine glasses and passing plates, she watched their faces expectantly. Teresa was smiling, but Kelly Anne knew her well enough to know that she wasn't completely at ease. Kelly Anne had hidden behind smiles and pleasantries at the dinner table enough times to know the difference. Her heart sank.

 _She’s not happy._ _This isn’t what she wanted._ That familiar feeling of inadequacy came creeping back in. 

"A toast!" she cried, a tiny bit of desperation coloring her voice. As everyone raised their glasses (or prawn shot, in Charger's case), her words were cut off by the shrill ringing of someone's cell phone on the sideboard. Teresa reached for it guiltily.

"Hey, I thought we agreed, no phones!"

Teresa glanced at the screen. "It's George, it could be important."

“Maybe he’s run out of booze,” Charger chortled unhelpfully while helping himself to another prawn shot.

"George, is everything okay?" Kelly Anne could hear frantic yelling in the background, and Teresa suddenly jerked the phone away from her ear as gunfire erupted on the other end of the line.

"Hold on George, we'll be there as soon as we can."

Face grim, she ended the call and shoved back her chair.

"George is in trouble. He’s at some club downtown and there are men after him.”

"Shit," James swore under his breath. "Who the hell is attacking us _now_?"

“What kind of godless motherfuckers do this on Christmas Eve?” said Charger, crossing himself. “It’s like they hate baby Jesus or something.”

Pote threw him a look. “No, cabrón, they just hate you.”

Charger gave him the finger.

"Focus, everyone,” snapped Teresa, not looking up from her phone as she texted for backup. Her fingers flew over the keys. " Kelly Anne, you stay here. It's too dangerous."

"Um, excuse me, but I'm not just gonna hang around here and eat fruitcake while y'all run off into danger."

Teresa opened her mouth to protest, but Kelly Anne cut her off. "We don't have time for this. We're a team, no matter what, so I'm coming with, you hear?"

Teresa looked mutinous, but she gave a curt nod and headed for the gun cabinet, James close at her heels. Pote handed her his sidearm and locked his eyes onto hers. "You stay back and stay out of trouble, understand?"

Kelly Anne nodded mutely, the gun feeling like a live snake in her hand. She cast one last mournful glance at her beautifully laid out table and hurried off after the others.

She may be a sorry excuse for a cook, but this, this she could do. _She had to._

_**Step 5: Always expect the unexpected, even on Christmas Eve.** _

Which is how Kelly Anne found herself crouched behind said aforementioned dumpster, which reeked of odors too foul to describe. Her shoes were a lost cause, and her toes squelched uncomfortably. The glowing neon lights from the club cast everything in a decidedly ghoulish light.

Peeking around the side of the dumpster, she watched the drama unfold. She could see Teresa and her team drawing the gunmen's attention away from the building just as George and his crew came bursting out of a side door in a blaze of gunfire. Despite the gravity of the situation, she had to choke back a laugh as she took in the George's outfit – clearly, he’d been doing some serious celebrating of his own.

"Merry fuckin' Christmas, assholes!" he bellowed, resplendent in a pair of red sequinned shorts and a Santa hat (and nothing else). Toting a machine gun on his hip, it wasn't a sight she'd forget in a hurry. Trust George to always make an entrance. (And to bring a machine gun to a nightclub.)

Tearing her eyes away from George, she noticed a masked henchman creeping around a delivery truck and inching closer to Teresa's position. _You can do this_. Memories of that last fateful night at home with Cole flashed before her eyes, but she resolutely banished them back to the recesses of her mind. Teresa needed her. Here. Now.

Squeezing the trigger, she fired off a round into the man's leg, and he howled in agony. James materialized out of nowhere and finished him off, giving her a quick nod of thanks before disappearing back into the fray.

_Deep breath._

It was all over fairly quickly after that, with the last of the masked men piling into a dark sedan and fleeing with a final screech of tires. (Clearly a discount brand of henchmen.)

George, who had somehow managed to keep his Santa hat on during the altercation, draped a bare arm around Teresa and squeezed her shoulders in silent thanks. "So what do you say, T-Rex? Party back at yours?"

As police sirens started wailing in the distance, the ridiculousness of it all hit Kelly Anne like a ton of bricks. Hysterical laughter bubbled out of her like a fountain, and she was helpless to control it.

"Merry Fuckin' Christmas," she gasped out, tears streaming down her face as the group just stared at her in bewilderment. "I can't…."

Pote was suddenly at her side, rubbing comforting circles on her back. "It's alright, Kelly Anne, it's all right. Let's get you home."

***

Everyone was fizzing with adrenaline, clearly not ready to call it a night, but Kelly Anne knew her plan for the evening could not be salvaged. Staring forlornly at the turkey sitting fossilized in its own grease, she finally conceded defeat.

“Alright, team, listen up. It’s still Christmas Eve, and we’re all still alive by some miracle, so we damn well need to celebrate. But don’t you even worry – I’m not goin’ to try and force anyone to eat that turkey or pull Christmas crackers. Those thugs at the club probably saved y’all from some sort of terrible food poisoning or God knows what. Next time I’ll leave it to the expert.”

She bowed in Pote’s direction.

“But right now I smell like a garbage can, my feet are killin’ me, and I want nothin’ more than to curl up in my sweat pants and drink myself senseless, so let’s do this thing!”

George whooped and rubbed his hands together. “Atta girl! Let’s get this party started. Bilal, give me a beat.”

Bilal obligingly started beatboxing while George shimmied and rolled his way over to Pote. “C’mon, Chewie, get your groove on!”

“Put on some pants, cabrón. Show a little respect.”

“You know you want a piece of this.” George rolled his hips suggestively.

“Alright, alright, enough of this,” said Kelly Anne, clapping her hands together before things got out of hand. “James, Charger, grab those crates of champagne. Teresa, with me. We’re on snack patrol.”

Thankful for James’ sweet tooth, she started pulling bags of kettle corn and licorice and chocolate-covered pretzels out of the cupboards, piling them onto the counter. Teresa cleared her throat awkwardly.

“Listen, Kelly Anne, I want you to know that I do appreciate everything you’ve been doing. Really. I…it means a lot. It’s just….”

“You don’t have to say another word.” Kelly Anne looked earnestly at Teresa and took her hands in her own. “I should’ve been more sensitive. I know this time of year brings up painful memories, and I just barrelled along like a freight train, so confident that I could erase everyone’s pain…my pain…with all of this. Even though sometimes we just need to stock up on Kleenex and ride the sadness wave until we’re okay again.”

“But Teresa, look what we’re buildin’ here together. It’s worth celebratin’! And we’ll just have to make our own traditions now, new traditions - crazy, stupid, completely unconventional traditions - rather than clingin’ to things that make us miserable. If Cheetos and champagne are how celebrate Christmas, so be it! First thing tomorrow the snow globes are gone – cross my heart and hope to die.”

Teresa suddenly pulled her into a tentative hug, and Kelly Anne thrilled at the rare display of affection, squeezing her tight and pouring every ounce of warmth she could muster into the embrace.

“Thank you, Kelly Anne. For everything.”

Kelly Anne pulled back and looked Teresa square in the eye. “You’ve saved me so many times. Helped me be braver, stronger, stopped me from givin’ up on myself. It’s me that should be thankin’ you.”

She wiped a stray tear from the corner of her eye. “Now, enough of this, let’s go see what those boys have gotten up to!”

The boys in question had piled onto the couches in the basement in front of the biggest widescreen TV drug money could buy, swilling champagne straight from the bottle. George had, thankfully, found some pants. He was flicking through the channels, finally landing on _The Empire Strikes Back_.

“Oh hell yeah, we’re havin’ a Star Wars marathon, baby! That’s what I’m talkin' about!”

Charger groaned and tried wrestle the remote from him to no avail.

“The King has spoken, amigo. Now gimme some of that kettle corn.”

Kelly Anne settled on the carpet in front of Pote, who kindly started rubbing her shoulders.

“You doing alright?” he asked as her worked on a particularly tight spot.

Kelly Anne placed one hand over his and raised her bottle of champagne with the other. The alcohol was singing in her veins and making her feel pleasantly weightless.

“This right here? This is all the medicine I need.”

Looking around at the faces of her friends, Kelly Anne sighed in contentment. She saw James casually stretching his arm over the back of the couch, Teresa subtly leaning closer into his side as she reached for a handful of chips. George was winding tinsel around a long-suffering Bilal, and Charger was throwing popcorn at the screen as Luke Skywalker fought his way out of the wampa’s lair.

Maybe it was okay not to be normal. To acknowledge that this isn’t the life you’d hoped to have while still enjoying the small pleasures of the life you _were_ building. And the people you shared it with. In all its ridiculous, messy, sometimes heartbreaking glory.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past were still there, but no longer screaming in her head. As for what the Ghost of Christmas Future had in store for her? As long as she had these people by her side, she wasn’t afraid to find out. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this little diversion into Kelly Anne land! 
> 
> Recipe excerpts were taken from "Christmas With Good Housekeeping" (2018)


End file.
